i was never what you truly wanted, i was just someone to look to.
look for me on the road
either scattered or waving hesitantly,
warm sunlight beaming down upon my shoulders.
you were what i truly wanted, i was just too scared to tell you.
deathly afraid you’ll see how much you mean to me
and then you’ll disappear into the corpse of our love.
i’m so terrified to tell you,
so sick of being unsure.
sick of being second;
all i want is to be heard.
and if you do not adore me
how will this all go?
when i love you till i’m dying quick,
how fast will you hold me?
oh, how fast you know me.
when no one quite understands,
i hear your voice and smile,
wishing you would speak to me,
i haven’t seen you in a while.
i’m always second pick
i’m sick of being pushed to the side
i miss you—i miss us.
i miss every conversation.
every contemplation of whether i’m in love with you,
every expectation you had of me,
every quiet moment where i didn’t feel like exploding.
i wonder if you know that you know me better than anyone.
i wonder if you know you’re all i think about when i’m lonely.
i wonder if you know i love you.

more? there’s nothing to give.
not with my sore pale hands
clutching every last fiber that stands
between our two shapes.
not with my bloodshot eyes
pleading for responses that eat at every surface.
not with my black dying heart
wincing at the sight of every disaster that, in vain, keeps me alive.
not with my hollow brain
the fight or flight tendencies defining the reactions i give.

you want more?
there’s nothing to give.
there never was anything
to give.

need a friend?
the doubts live inside of me like citizens
that walk slowly in courthouses ready to sue.
all their passions are out of wack,
they only know how to survive by shooting down others.
every hollow house i was led to, hand in hand,
as i trusted you to guide me.
i need a friend.
i need the fever, the fire, the rage, the shooting star, the red seething blood.
any warmth to remind myself of tenderness,
even if it is without at the core.
i need anticipatory silence, waiting your filthy hands to slap the dinner table and i rush to clean the shattered plates.
don’t hurt me,
be gentle,
don’t make me smaller.
make me smaller,
make me writhe,
make me smaller,
quieter, less of a burden.
be responsive,
make me spill.
i need a friend.
the panic has large hands that choke me,
has a large frame to push me deep
and never lift me out.
though, i will not make do with violence,
i am not silent when it comes to love that festers.
need a friend?
the breaths i take will be for you.
the day is wicked
and you are so tender,
i would like this meal to be filling,
i would like you to stay a while.

and i’m swallowing each impossible love
and letting it fill my stomach lining.
i have touched this ****** with shaky palms.
i have taken my fill,
i have loved, lost, loved, and gave birth to a body i never conceived i would.
i have been in my own company
each night with stacked dishes and undone laundry
and puffy eyes that cannot seem to shrink.
i’m swallowing each sweet nothing as if it belongs to me—as if you belong to me.
through flesh and blood, i see your insides.
they are living. your aura. the soft delicate smooth manner in which you exist.
i live to see the sunrise from your bedroom window in a nightgown,
observing whole towns awakening
as our hearts have never known another
as clearly worth living for.
we are alive and i’m swallowing each emotion
i forced myself to deny.
i breathe what i feel, i am what i want, i am wanting
and oh dear, there is nothing wrong with that.

i am a dying wish—yours to be specific.
the wish dying in your arms every time the sun makes its rotation around the Earth.

there’s no life in me; i am a carcass strewn over the highway,
crushed and mangled and torn to shreds.

what if, if after every pound i lost,
i lost more of myself?
a skinny figure who changed herself to please a piece of glass.

when you said my name, i felt like you would leave me in a cornfield unconsciously anonymous,
yet you streaked my sky.
i’m shedding tears like skin, like burdened rain
seeping from the clouds on a day the world decides to die a little.

when the night is still, my muscles tense up.
i’ve been waiting for the memory of you to remember me,
dancing shameless on the ledge,
unafraid to look childish, knowing you were the first to make the empty void cease.

wide-eyed at the ceiling, losing two strands of hair in the shower, mailing you my address, begging you to stay.
you won’t—i won’t let you.

i am a foggy backroad, you cannot see through me.
all you’d see is a figure, clutching her stomach,
pinching herself for eating two meals,
for not resisting the temptation to feed the pressing hunger.

in your mind, the quietness i exude is only when my brain is confined.
there are shapeless memories and words that float until my arms are strong enough to grab them.

what if after every pound i lost, i lost more of myself,
drifting away into an unwelcoming atmosphere, unfit for someone as bewildered as me?

what if i love you and i don’t know what to do with that
so i write on a night with no moon visible from my bedroom window
and i lie awake wondering whether you are dreaming of me or whether you love me too
or whether we are nothing
but two memories floating,
remembering the other as their favorite one?

every morning, i lose a little hope that you will love me.
there are weapons in my hands,
pointed straight at your heart.
will you love me if my temporary winter chooses to subside?
will you love me with my spring eyes and hopeful glances?

there are weapons in my arms,
pointed straight at your heart.
the night calls my name with her quiet lips,
her silent voice gliding through the busy streets,
straight into my soul.
will you love me if the distance only makes you guiltier?
will you love me as an extension of the adoration for yourself?

there are weapons in my heart,
pointed straight at your heart.
the morning kills me with her hands as i almost do to you;
unmistakably, regrettably, and embarrassed.
will you love me as i am, a summer child, with hopes as fleeting as the humidity?
will you love me if i cannot hide my fragility anymore?

i’m so ashamed to admit i’m too weak to love you.
but will you love me, without arms, without hands, without weapons aimed at mistakes, without window panes, without cold shoulders, without dying streetlights illuminating the bones of every fault, without shame, without killing me by accident, without drowning out the truth, without starving all the bad news as if it’ll just disappear, without eyes that burn through confessions, without flimsy notions, without sickness?
will you love me if the words refuse to escape from my prideful lips,
that i love you just the same?
will you love me even if the morning never comes, even if the winter keeps pushing its frosty thumb against the glass, even if the world around us keeps us knee deep in quicksand, slaves to our own habits of ‘run away’?
will you love me no matter the weapons i try to attack you with?—
i have no bullets, no sharp knives, no desire to harm you.
my inability of loving is violent in and of itself
so
every morning, i think less of who i am,
knowing i do not deserve to be loved
by you.

when the floodlights hit my body,
i hope it dazzles clearly
for i am scared i’ll disappear in a crowd
and the beam of light won’t notice me.
although i’m frantically waving my arms
𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦
with those eyes that make the moon seem small
that make the sun lose some of its glory.

and once the day will bring forth no light
and we will have to forge some ourselves.
your arms will be the anchors
holding Earth still
and i’ll lasso the sun two times around
and coax it out of the nimbostratus clouds
𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦
it whimpers.

when we walk in alleyways with no streetlights,
i hope you hold my jacket sleeve or my hand in the cold chill of the sudden change in temperature.
i pray that you’ll still watch me
so strangers walking with the darkness
don’t steal me away
and make a jail cell out of my heart
leaving the prisoners it detained pacing and awake.
i hope the streetlight shines or your heart bursts into the fire of one thousand suns
just
promise me you’ll
𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦